After providing over 70% of Vermont’s total in-state electricity generation capacity in the last 42 years, the 604-MW Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant stopped sending watts to New England’s grid just over one week ago. bloomberg.com

The only nuclear power plant in the Northwest, the Columbia Generating Station at Richland, produced more electricity in 2014 than in any year in its 30-year history. elp.com

Stemline Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that it has exclusively licensed from CanBas Co., Ltd. the rights to develop and commercialize a novel, oral small molecule reversible inhibitor of Exportin-1a nuclear transport target also known as Chromosome Region Maintenance-1. benzinga.com

New reports from several Illinois agencies propose ways lawmakers could help keep the state’s nuclear plants open. sfgate.com

         I often blog and post links about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Despite concerns about earthquake and floods causing future accidents, the Abe government is determined to restart Japan’s idle fleet of nuclear reactors. Abe has made nuclear power a central theme of his administration. Both the restart of domestic reactors and the export of nuclear technology are seen by Abe as absolutely critical to the economic future of Japan. One problem that is ongoing and unanswered is what to do with all the radioactively contaminated waste produced by cleaning up the site of the Fukushima disaster.

        It is estimated that one hundred and fifty two tons of contaminated waste including compost, incinerated ash, paddy straw and sewage sludge from the Fukushima cleanup have been accumulated from twelve prefectures. The government had intended to create permanent disposal sites in five prefectures mostly in northern and eastern Japan. However, the residents of those prefectures have blocked many of those projects.

        In Shioya, Tochiga Prefecture in central Japan, local residents objected to the siting of a disposal facility because they were concerned about possible impact on an important hot spring. Over one hundred and seventy thousand people sign a petition against the project.

        In Miyagi Prefecture, exploratory drilling to determine the best place to site a waste depository was halted by local resistance. Official’s vehicles were block by protestors when the officials came to the prefecture for a survey. A new ordinance to protect local water supplies was just passed in Miyagi and that may also interfere with the depository siting.

        Gunma and Ibaraki Prefectures are far behind schedule in planning for depository siting. Neither prefecture has even developed a plan for selecting possible disposal sites.

        Chiba Prefecture has begun removing wastes from a temporary storage site although Ministry of Environment officials are still trying to find another site that the waste can be moved to.

        Fukushima Prefecture contains over eighty percent of the contaminated waste from the disaster. Existing waste disposal sites and new sites are being constructed in abandoned towns in the area of the power plant to take the most contaminated soil. Owners of the land that would be used have objected to the plan and this has slowed the siting process. Originally, it was hoped that disposal sites would be set up and operating by January of this year but this has not happened.

       Japan was having problems storing the waste produced by nuclear power plants before the Fukushima disaster. Now they have to find a way to dispose of the debris from the disaster and it is not going well. Japan is highly populated but very small and it has a high density of people per square mile. The Japanese revere the small villages in the countryside and local residents have a lot of say over what happens in their area. Apparently a lot of Japanese citizens object to having a radioactive waste dump near their community.

Prefecture map of Japan:

Record level of “flesh-eating bacteria” cases in Japan began around 2011 Fukushima disaster. bloomberg.com

A 37 percent drop in natural gas prices since June has lowered what U.S. nuclear and coal plants can charge for electricity, potentially speeding the demise of generators teetering on the brink of closing. bloomberg.com

 Iran’s supreme leader has said the United States cannot be trusted to lift sanctions in a future nuclear deal and that Tehran should instead develop an “economy of resistance.”

Toshiba Corp. is reportedly in talks with the Kazakhstan’s state-run nuclear power concern Kazatomprom for construction of a Westinghouse Electric Company AP-1000 advanced pressurized light water reactor, which would be the first deal of its kind for a Japanese company in the former Russian state. nuclearstreet.com

         I often blog about nuclear power reactors. My focus has usually been on the radioactive material in the reactors and problems which may result in the release of radioactive materials into the environment. However, there is much more to a nuclear power plant than the reactors and their radioactive fuels. There are complex mechanical systems, complex electronic systems and complex human systems. There are possibilities for pollution of the ecosystem beyond nuclear materials in the operation of a nuclear power plant.

          The Donald C. Cook Generating Station is located in southwest Michigan on the shore of Lake Michigan near the city of Bridgman, Michigan. The Station is operated by Indiana Michigan Power Company and it is owned by American Electric Power. Construction of the two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors at the Station began in 1969 and both reactors were connected to the grid and supplying power by 1978. In 2005, the NRC granted twenty year license extensions. Reactor 1 is now licensed until 2034 and Reactor 2 is now licensed until 2037. Both reactor produce about one gigawatt of electricity.

        There have been accidents at the Station that took the lives of three people. The Station has had to be shut down several times due to serious mechanical problems in key systems. In 1996, both reactors were shut down for three years because the operators were not correcting serious problems in a timely and competent fashion. In 2003, Reactor 1 was shut down because a transformer fire triggered an automatic shutdown. One of the consequences of the fire was the release of cooling oil into Lake Michigan.

        In October of 2014, the Station began leaking cooling oil into Lake Michigan. Officials at the Station notified state officials about the leak on December 13. The source of the leak was not found until December 20, 2014. During the two months of the leak, about two thousand gallons of oil from a cooling system leaked into the lake.

        The communication manager for the Station said that there would be no impact on the lake from the spill. He commented that oil left a sheen on water and that they had found no sheen on the water in their reservoir, in the lake or on beaches. He concluded that the oil had dispersed.

       The Director of a non-profit called the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, challenged the claim that dispersion of the oil removed any threat to the lake and surrounding ecosystem. He wondered if the officials at the Station really had any solid idea of how much oil had leaked into the lake during the two months that they were unaware of the leak.

        Apparently small oil leaks, usually from power transformers, are common occurrences at nuclear power plants. It may seem that oil leaks of even a few thousand gallons should be considered trivial next to things like the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. However, to me, it simply reinforces the idea that nuclear plant operators may be slow to identify and fix problems like the oil leak but they are quick to claim that there is no threat to health or the ecosystem.

Donald C. Cook Generating Station:

Iran may expand its nuclear energy organization. timeseofisrael.com

A university expert noted that given the situation presented by energy reform, it is convenient to develop a serious initiative regarding the revival of nuclear engineering in Mexico. phys.org

A media report from Japan said electronics giant Toshiba is putting the final details together for a $1.6 billion order for U.S. subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Company control systems, turbines and other equipment that would supply six to eight nuclear reactors in China. nuclearstreet.com

Alex White, energy minister for the Republic of Ireland, has said that nuclear power ought to be considered in a debate on the country’s future energy needs. world-nuclear-news.org
 

Iran’s president calls for end to isolation, urges nuclear deal. latimes.com

A senior Iranian military officer says the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has thwarted an Israeli assassination attack on an Iranian nuclear scientist, Press TV reported. worldbulletin.net

Two aircraft – presumably drones – were spotted flying over a French nuclear power plant on Saturday. rt.com

Global nuclear generating capacity increased slightly in 2014 as five new reactors began supplying electricity, while just one was permanently shut down. world-nuclear-news.org